I (24F) have been in my first relationship with my bf (22M) for six months. I’ve always had a hard time with dating and committing to people (it’s difficult for me to open up and let others love me). However, with this person it felt different. He has always been so kind and understanding, loving, encouraging me to open up, working with me through problems. He just seems really secure. Over these last six months I have loved him more and more, and just the fact that no one has absolute certainty about a relationship and the possibility that we could break up freaks me out. It scares me so much that I avoid talking about things that could lead to a break-up. Because I just don’t want to break up with him, and by finding out a real incompatibility I feel like I have to break up. Now I think there are some real doubts in my relationship, but how I respond to them with anxiety and avoidance is the problem. My biggest fear is that he will leave me and break up with me when he goes abroad. We’ve talked about our future plans, and I know he wants to study for a year abroad and that maybe in the future he will work abroad for a couple of years. He also knows, before entering the relationship, that I really value serious and long term relationships and that I don’t want to enter a relationship if we already know it won’t work in the long term. I also told him marriage is important to me, and I would only enter the relationship if he’s open to the idea of marrying me before I’m 30, and he agreed. That being said, I thought it would be all ok with the (long-term) relationship. But now I can’t shake the thought off that maybe he will leave me when he goes abroad and maybe that was his plan all along. I’m even scared to talk to him about it because I’m afraid he will break up with me in the moment because we realize it’s an incompatibility. It causes a lot of anxiety and distress because I don’t want this relationship to end. Somehow I convinced myself he WILL leave me, but I don’t have any evidence, right? I just don’t know what I should do in this situation and if my anxiety is legitimate. Any advice?
TL;DR: having no absolute certainty of staying together in the future is causing me crippling anxiety because I don’t want to break up. Any advice?